microsoft and oracle application platform...

Microsoft and Oracle Application Platform Comparison

Published: March 2008

Applies To: Microsoft Application Platform

Summary:

The purpose of this whitepaper is to compare Microsoft Application Platform capabilities and benefits

with the Oracle Application Platform.

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Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 1

The Microsoft Advantage ................................................................................................................................................ 2

Business Process and Service Oriented Architecture ........................................................................... 2

The .NET Framework ......................................................................................................................................................... 4

Microsoft BizTalk® Server ................................................................................................................................................ 5

Featured Case Study: Siemens .............................................................................................................................. 5

Data Management ..................................................................................................................................... 5

Security ................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Performance and Scalability ........................................................................................................................................... 7

Developer Productivity ..................................................................................................................................................... 8

Total Cost of Ownership .................................................................................................................................................. 8

Business Intelligence ................................................................................................................................. 9

Microsoft SQL Server™ .................................................................................................................................................. 10

Microsoft Office System ................................................................................................................................................ 11

Microsoft PerformancePoint® Server ...................................................................................................................... 11

Featured Case Study: PREMIER Bankcard LLC ............................................................................................. 11

User Experience ........................................................................................................................................ 11

Microsoft Silverlight™ .................................................................................................................................................... 12

Featured Case Study .............................................................................................................................................. 12

Windows Presentation Foundation .......................................................................................................................... 12

Microsoft Office Business Applications and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server® 2007 ...................... 12

Development ............................................................................................................................................ 13

Featured Case Studies: Dell and Electronic Data Systems (EDS) ........................................................... 14

Summary ................................................................................................................................................... 14

Additional Information ........................................................................................................................... 15

Sources and References .......................................................................................................................... 15

Microsoft and Oracle Application Platform Comparison 1

© 2008 Microsoft Corporations. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Companies today are demanding that IT solutions become a corporate asset that delivers business value. Software has

evolved beyond just helping people create documents and read e-mail messages. It can now connect people with the

information and business processes they need to make better decisions. From back-end infrastructure to end-user

tools, software is the key to empowering people to drive business ahead while maintaining standards, compliance and

security.

This new software environment puts the user in control of the information they want, and can offer whole new levels of

richness and interactivity. It will be imperative for companies to understand how to unlock the potential these new

application types will have on their user populations, internal and external.

To fully power these next-generation applications, companies need to:

1. Harness all the information across their company—within databases as well as applications.

2. Connect information—loosely coupled through service orientation and mapped to business processes.

3. Use applications to access exposed information and present it to users in connected and compelling experiences.

To connect the business and drive effective outcomes, companies need to focus on five core capabilities to deliver a

technology platform that supports the development and deployment of line-of-business applications. These five

capabilities are core to enabling a dynamic application platform and form the basis of this white paper.

Figure 1: Basic Application Platform Capabilities

•A scalable, integrated data management platform that is "always on.. Benefits from higher application reliability, improved manageability, and enhanced data protection.

Data Management

•SOA (service-oriented architecture) and adaptive business processes. Gains operational efficiency through automated procesess.

Business Process and Service-Oriented Architecture

•Real-time analysis that drives insights organizations can be used to power business growth. Empowers employees to make better, faster, and more relevant decisions.

Business Intelligence

•Modern team development and management throughout the application lifecycle. Improves both developer productivity and IT project management.

Development

•Proactive collaboration of application design and development. Helps improve the effectiveness, comprehension, and satisfaction of end users.

User Experience



The Microsoft Advantage

While Microsoft and Oracle share a common approach to the application platform, Microsoft is well-positioned to

offer a unique value proposition to its customers. While head-to-head comparisons of each capability of the platform

yield interesting data points, the Microsoft Application Platform is designed to offer customers substantial advantages

in several key areas that have both immediate and long-term impact that span the breadth of all capabilities:

1. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Customers deploying the Microsoft application platform can achieve a

lower total cost of ownership. A lower total cost of ownership almost typically helps customers achieve a

higher return on investment.

2. Integration. Microsoft‟s platform has been built incrementally based on customer feedback, resulting in a

high degree of thoughtful integration. As this paper seeks to make clear, Microsoft solutions are built to work

together and offer a clear alternative to Oracle‟s acquisition-based silo applications.

3. Extensibility. The Microsoft application platform is designed to be more easily extensible thanks to its strong

tools and the availability of millions of capable developers worldwide.

The remainder of this document will detail these benefits—and others—across the five capabilities of a dynamic

application platform.

Business Process and Service-Oriented Architecture

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has emerged as a popular strategy for designing how enterprise systems should

work together to advance the business with IT. With a service-oriented approach, organizations expect to improve cost

efficiency and overall business agility.

Microsoft‟s “real world” SOA strategy was initiated in 1999 with the introduction of the .NET Framework, which

continues to set the industry bar as the first native Web Services-based platform built from the ground-up. For

example, analyst firms such as the Burton Group have recognized the Microsoft application platform as the most

cohesive of all major vendor “superplatforms.” Using .NET and industry-standard Web Services, organizations can

acquire the ability to quickly develop applications that interoperate with other systems.

Microsoft‟s success in SOA implementations is the result of a “real-world” approach. It is driven through incremental,

iterative SOA projects that are designed to deliver rapidly on business goals rather than top-down, mega-scale efforts

at across-the-board business process reengineering.

An effective SOA strategy provides services that support both structured and unstructured processes. The goal of a

structured process, such as opening a bank account or making an airline reservation, is a standard, predictable,

transparent, and efficient transaction.

An unstructured process, such as executing a marketing event or preparing a custom proposal for a customer, typically

requires services which foster innovation and productivity by supporting interactions between people.

Microsoft‟s unique approach is designed to provide integrated, service-enabled workflow, business rules, business

process orchestration, and collaboration technologies for supporting both unstructured and structured business

processes. These technologies include .NET, Microsoft Office, Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft Live Communications

Server and Microsoft SharePoint Server.

For integrating systems, Microsoft provides a variety of technologies, including Microsoft BizTalk Server and Microsoft

Windows® Communication Foundation (WCF). The .NET StockTrader sample application demonstrates use of WCF to

integrate a robust service-oriented .NET application with JEE (Java Enterprise Edition) applications.

In addition to platform-level interoperability technologies, Microsoft also provides a broad set of adapters to support

interoperability with SAP, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Oracle, Siebel, TIBCO, IBM, popular EDI standards, and other

solutions. As the result of its efforts on these fronts, a leading analyst has identified Microsoft as an industry leader for

back-end integration projects.



Figure 2: SOA in the Microsoft Application Platform.

NOTES: Microsoft Active Directory®, Microsoft ForeFront™, Microsoft Visual Studio®, and the Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows

logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation either in the United States or other countries. The Microsoft

Solutions Framework (MSF) represents a deliberate and disciplined approach to technology projects based on a defined set of principles,

models, disciplines, concepts, guidelines, and proven practices from Microsoft; Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) provides

operational guidance that enables organizations to achieve mission-critical system reliability, availability, supportability, and

manageability of Microsoft products and technologies.

Microsoft‟s “real-world” approach to SOA, powered by the .NET platform, continues to set the industry bar as the first

native Web services-based platform built from the ground up. In addition to strong analyst recognition such as that of

the Burton Group, independent surveys of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from leading financial companies have

additionally demonstrated the way in which Microsoft has led in mindshare and customer preference through its

approach to SOA. In 2006, a Goldman Sachs IT spending survey of 100 IT managers acknowledged Microsoft‟s

leadership in promoting the move to SOA/Web services; still another 2006 Merrill Lynch Survey of Chief Information

Officers acknowledged Microsoft as a leading of Web services/SOA software (applications and infrastructure). In

addition, Merrill Lynch‟s survey reportedly ranked Microsoft the “most important provider of Web services/SOA

software (applications and infrastructure).”

By design, service orientation is built into virtually every aspect of the Microsoft technology stack—from developer

tools for developing Web services using .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio®, to server products (such as Microsoft

BizTalk Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server), which further Web service construction by connecting and

orchestrating services—and, finally, to the composite applications that consume Web services from virtually any client

or device (see Figure 2, above).

The following section discusses two important building blocks for Microsoft SOA offerings in detail: the .NET

Framework and BizTalk Server. Two other major components, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and SQL Server, will

be discussed in a later section. Nearly every enterprise product shipped by Microsoft has been designed with

considerations for SOA, including support for:



Exposing Existing Systems: The Microsoft platform is designed to help customers expose existing systems

using the integration technologies available in BizTalk Server, SQL Server, Windows, and .NET, through use of

BizTalk Adapters and SQL Server Integration Services.

Composing Business Transactions: Once the core enterprise systems have been exposed, BizTalk Server can

provide business process services including orchestration, transformation, and business activity monitoring;

SQL Server can provide information integration services and .NET (WCF), Windows, and BizTalk Server can

provide messaging services (ESB) for structured business processes.

Composing User Interactions: For composing user interactions that constitute unstructured business

processes, Microsoft provides .NET (Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation) and Microsoft Office

SharePoint Server for workflow management. For collaboration, Microsoft provides both Microsoft Office Live

Communications Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. For presentation services, Microsoft provides

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, .NET (WPF), .NET Compact Framework for mobile devices, Silverlight for

rich internet applications, the ability to extend Office desktop productivity applications, ASP.NET for Web

applications, and Windows Client for desktop applications.

Consuming Services: Using Microsoft technologies, a wide variety of options exist for consuming services

from Web sites, mobile devices, desktop applications, productivity applications as well as from reports,

analytics, and scorecards.

Accessing Common Platform Services, which include:

Active Directory, a centralized service to provide central authentication and authorization.

Microsoft Identify and Integration Server, a centralized service that stores and integrates identity

information for organizations with multiple directories.

Microsoft Forefront, a comprehensive solution that helps provide protection for the client operating

system, application servers, and the network edge.

Microsoft System Center, a set of server products aimed specifically at helping corporate IT

administrators manage a network of Windows Server and client desktop systems. In addition, there is a

rich “ecosystem” of partners who also provide services management products. There is also the

Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), which provides prescriptive guidance for managing applications

on Windows systems

Visual Studio Team System, is a set of solutions for developing, debugging, and testing applications and

services which also provides for application lifecycle management. Patterns and practices help provide

best practices for application and services development. The Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) also

provides prescriptive guidance for developing applications.

The .NET Framework

The .NET Framework is the managed code programming model for Microsoft Windows. Developers use the .NET

Framework to build services and applications for Windows clients, Microsoft Windows Server®, or Windows-powered

devices—or to build interconnections between disparate components in a service-oriented architecture. By enabling

developers to create custom applications that integrate among services deployed across a distributed,

heterogeneous network, the .NET Framework plays a critical role in helping businesses to realize the business agility

and flexibility benefits of SOA.

Support for building applications that expose or consume service interfaces has been built in to the .NET Framework

since its introduction in 2002. Today, new advances are included in the .NET Framework to help enable even greater

power and flexibility for developers working on systems that follow SOA principles. The programming interfaces

provided by the .NET Framework include libraries that support SOA in many areas including communication,

workflow, presentation, identity and security, the Web, and extensible markup language (XML). Virtually every SOA-



related product in the Microsoft portfolio integrates or interoperates with the .NET Framework, helping to improve

ease of integration for developers and ease of maintenance for administrators.

BizTalk Server

The key server solution in Microsoft‟s SOA and business process management (BPM) offerings is Microsoft BizTalk

Server. BizTalk Server 2006 is a BPM server designed to automate and optimize business processes. BizTalk Server

includes powerful, familiar, tools for designing, developing, deploying, and managing those processes. It is designed to

provide customers with an easy to use link between collaborative and transactional processes through integration with

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. BizTalk Server is specifically designed to enable improved information-

sharing among people, systems, and trading partners without the need for custom code. BizTalk Server includes a

broad suite of over 200 adapters to major line-of-business (LOB) systems (such as SAP, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and

Siebel) as well as heterogeneous technology platforms (such as Oracle DBMS, IBM mainframe and AS/400, and TIBCO

Rendezvous). This helps businesses expose processes contained within existing applications and to integrate them with

related processes and systems using the BizTalk Server process composition tools.

With the introduction of the fifth full version, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 builds upon the BPM and SOA/ESB capabilities in

prior releases to help organizations extend core process management technologies even further with new capabilities

like native support for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Applicability Standard 2 (AS2), and Radio Frequency

Identification (RFID), as well as close alignment with the upcoming releases of 2007 Microsoft Office system and

Microsoft Windows Vista®, including key .NET Framework technologies such as Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)

and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Microsoft BizTalk Server is a mature product that has been extensively tested and proven by over 7,000 customers in

an array of real world deployments. It is designed to offer customers with one of the best opportunities for return-on-

investment (ROI) in the industry and has historically demonstrated strong ROI according to independent analyses. For

example, as early as 2004, the independent analyst firm Nucleus Research gave Microsoft BizTalk Server an overall

score of 4.8 out of 5 in ROI with perfect scores in deployment, adoption, support, business impact, and vendor track

record.

Featured Case Study: Siemens Siemens is one of the world‟s largest electrical engineering and electronics companies. Over the last four years, the

Siemens business unit IT Operations has created a service-oriented IT architecture that integrates disparate data

sources and eliminates human bottlenecks in key business processes. To progress its service-oriented philosophy,

Siemens rolled out Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 at the heart of its infrastructure. This integrates SAP applications with

business process modeling software Aris, reducing development times for new, automated business processes by 50

percent. In 2006, the company used these tools to automate IT provisioning for employees. HR professionals are now

free to focus on core activities as time-consuming telephone and fax communications have been eliminated, and

employees can work more effectively from day one.

Data Management Both Oracle and Microsoft agree that at the foundation of the application platform is a database that provides data

management and transactional services. Microsoft SQL Server on Microsoft Windows Server provides a platform for

enterprise-class relational database and analysis solutions that‟s designed to excel in security, availability, integration

with Microsoft Visual Studio, and scalability from small businesses to the largest—all at lower costs than comparable

solutions such as those of Oracle. For example, Microsoft SQL Server offers reportedly astonishing savings over Oracle

solutions in terms of administrative cost and other factors that contribute to total cost of ownership. For example, an

independent study of the total cost of administration (TCA) for surveyed database administrators (DBAs)

using Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle databases found that the Microsoft SQL Server cost-per-DBA yielded an $7,360

lower average TCA per database—over a 350% difference.



In contrast, Oracle typically provides only basic security features across of all of its various product editions; additional

advanced security features that many customers may consider essential may be available only as options at additional

cost.

Moreover, these important and more advanced options are available only with the Enterprise Edition of the database,

leaving small- and medium-sized businesses potentially vulnerable. The bottom line is that for equivalent security

functionality, SQL Server can cost less than Oracle and be easier to manage.

Security Microsoft believes that advanced security is functionality that should be standard in all enterprise database

infrastructures. That‟s why Microsoft SQL Server includes all of its standard security features in each and every SQL

Server edition, “out-of-the-box”. Customers that acquire SQL Server 2005 Enterprise, Workgroup, Standard, and

Express editions receive the same standard security features and functionality and do not have to purchase them

separately as add-ons at an additional cost.

Table: Standard Security Features Common to SQL Server 2005 Editions

Features Express Workgroup Standard Enterprise

Advanced Auditing, Authentication, and Authorization

Data Encryption and Key Management

Integration with Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer

Integration with Microsoft Update

Table Source: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Security Feature Comparison.

In addition, leading analysts report that Microsoft SQL Server offers a stronger security posture and reduced

vulnerability than Oracle‟s solutions.

“What database is more secure? Oracle vs. Microsoft,” a November 2006 independent security study by Next

Generation Security Software Ltd. co-founder and Managing Director David Litchfield compared the respective security

postures of Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle RDBMS (relational database management system) based on multiple

sources for the period between December 2000 and November 2006. Litchfield reported that not only did SQL Server

possess a stronger security posture than Oracle RDBMS (i.e., Oracle 10g Release 2), but that Microsoft SQL Server

demonstrated a lower incidence of total security flaws reported by external researchers as well as that fewer security

vulnerabilities were detected in SQL Server than in Oracle RDBMS over the same period of time. In addition, Litchfield

concluded that Microsoft also addressed vulnerabilities more quickly than Oracle due to its strong Security

Development Life Cycle (SDL) as well as stated that he believed SQL Server code was “just more secure than Oracle

code.” Altogether, the report suggested that customer days-of-exposure-to-risk may be demonstrably lower with SQL

Server than with Oracle (at the time of publication, no security flaws had yet been announced for SQL Server 2005).

“Microsoft Runs the Security Table,”, a second November 2006 study by independent analyst firm ESG, reported that

rate of security vulnerabilities documented in the National Vulnerability Database for the major database vendors is

noteworthy for the stark contrast between Microsoft, MySQL and Oracle. ESG believes that Microsoft‟s investments in

secure development processes are responsible for the impressive results in SQL Server quality. ESG considers Microsoft,

with proper execution, to be years ahead of Oracle and MySQL in producing secure and reliable database products.



Performance and Scalability Microsoft SQL Server 2005 has demonstrated outstanding performance, scalability, and price/performance results with

industry benchmarks that compare favorably to Oracle solutions and virtually speak for themselves. Transaction Processing

Performance Council (TPC) benchmarks confirm that:

SQL Server 2005 Exceeded the 1 Million Transactions-Per-Minute Mark in the TPC-C Benchmark.

TPC benchmarks demonstrate that SQL Server 2005 has successfully scaled past the barrier of 1 million transactions per

minute, type "C" (tpmC), becoming the first to ever do so on Windows. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 has also

demonstrated the highest ranking performance on Windows.

SQL Server 2005 currently holds various performance and price/performance records on the TPC type “H” benchmark:

In the 100-GB non-clustered category, SQL Server 2005 established a world record performance on of 19,323

QphH (queries per hour/H) at 100GB and price/performance of 10.67 $/QphH at 100GB.

In the 300GB category, SQL Server 2005 has demonstrated the best performance on Windows with 46,034 QphH

and price/QphH of $8.31 (and remains ranked second overall).

In the 1-terabyte category, SQL Server 2005 has also demonstrated the best performance on Windows.

In the 3-terabyte category, SQL Server 2005 demonstrated the best performance on Windows; in one 3-terabyte

case, SQL Server reached a performance of 60,359 QphH (queries per hour) with a price/performance of $32.60.

SQL Server 2005 also currently holds a higher ranking than either Oracle and IBM databases in both the 300-

gigabyte TPC-H non-clustered category as well as the 1-terabyte TPC-H non-clustered category.

SQL Server 2005 performance is ranked highest in a number of TPC of industry standard benchmarks, as shown in the

following table:

Table: TPC Performance Benchmarks for Microsoft SQL Server 2005

TPC Benchmark Category Result Highest Ranking on:

TPC-C Non-Clustered 1,231,433 tpmC Windows

TPC-H (100 gigabytes) Non-Clustered 19,323 QphH All platforms

TPC-H (300 gigabytes) Non-Clustered 46,034 QphH All platforms

TPC-H (1 terabyte) Non-Clustered 69,999 QphH All platforms

TPC-H (3 terabytes) Non-Clustered 60,359 QphH Windows

Table source: Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) Note: The above results represent current, standing performance

benchmarks that were achieved on multiple dates via multiple tests of varying configurations. Please see the TPC results for full details,

methodologies, and test conditions.

Moreover, Microsoft SQL Server is also designed to excel on Oracle line of business (LOB) applications such as those of

Siebel and PeopleSoft:

Table: SQL Server - Siebel and PeopleSoft Benchmarks

Workload/Application Segment Result Highest Ranking on:

Siebel eBusiness Application Suite CRM 30,000 concurrent users See Siebel Web site for details.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications CRM

Financials

HCM

25,200 concurrent users,

8,955,224 journal lines/hour,

82,743 payees/hour

See Microsoft SQL Server

PeopleSoft Web site for details.



Siebel: On October 17, 2005, Siebel certified the Siebel 7.7 benchmark with 30,000 concurrent users. SQL Server 2005

(64-bit edition) and Windows Server 2003 offer world-class performance for Siebel customers at a very compelling

total cost of ownership (TCO). The throughput, scalability, and reliability delivered by SQL Server 2005 can power the

largest and most complex Siebel business applications. SQL Server 2005 enhancements, in particular non-uniform

memory access (NUMA) support in the SQL Server Database Engine, allowed for almost linear scalability. To view the

complete results for the benchmarks listed above, please visit the Siebel Customer Relationship Management

Applications Web site.

PeopleSoft: PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications running on SQL Server deliver strong benchmark results in human

resources, financial, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) segments, and are fully covered under the Oracle

support policy. To view the complete results for the benchmarks listed above, please visit the Microsoft SQL Server:

Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications Web site.

Developer Productivity Integration of SQL Server 2005 with Microsoft Visual Studio, the Microsoft .NET technologies, and the common

language runtime helps to provide customers with a solution that‟s comprehensive, seamless, functional, and provides

high performance. SQL Server 2005 is also designed to provide exceptional ease of use and offer seamless integration

for service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications. Additionally, SQL Server 2005 business intelligence (BI) features

are integrated with Visual Studio.

The integration of SQL Server 2005 with Microsoft Visual Studio, the Microsoft .NET technologies, and the common

language runtime is designed to offer customers a more comprehensive, more seamless, more functional, and better-

performing solution than alternative such as Oracle‟s. SQL Server 2005 business intelligence (BI) features are even

designed to integrate with Visual Studio, unlike Oracle BI features: both the Microsoft .NET Framework and Visual

Studio are designed to provide value “out-of-the-box”, including the components required to develop Web services.

These tools—which are based on existing solutions and designed with additional functionality covering Web services

development and deployment requirements—are designed to allow developers to utilize existing skills and lower

training costs through use of a popular development environment for mission-critical operations.

That‟s one reason why developers and customers may choose the Microsoft Application Platform and its constituent

solutions over alternatives such as Oracle‟s. For example, a 2007 Microsoft-commissioned independent analyst survey

study of 500 North American IT decision-makers, developers, and architects who work on mission-critical operations

found that the highest number of respondents identified the Microsoft .NET Framework as their chosen primary

application technology platform and that .NET was their number one response for application technology platforms

supporting mission-critical operations.

Total Cost of Ownership Understanding the direct and indirect costs of deploying and managing an enterprise

database solution allows customers to make a more informed decision when deciding which

database is best for their organization.

When evaluating different databases, customers should be aware of what functionality is

included in the base product and what can be obtained only through options. For example,

Oracle includes limited functionality in the base product editions and offers additional

functionality through "options" or "add-ons." Acquiring and employing these additional

options add additional cost and in some cases may end up costing more than the base

product itself.

In the case of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, customers do not have to buy—for example—

additional security options or add-ons in order to acquire that additional functionality because

the same features are included in each SQL Server edition offered.

Basic Software Licensing

Cost Options

Cost

Multi-Core

Cost

Maintenance

& Support

Cost

Total Cost of Ownership

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/b/b/ebb6ec6a-d362-4884-9e1c-3fa19837362d/2007_IDC_Mission_Critical_App_Platform_Adoption_Study.pdf




Microsoft has also adopted a simple multicore licensing policy, in which it seeks to reduce enterprise software costs by

licensing physical processors—not cores—for Microsoft software that is licensed on a per-processor basis.

Oracle provides a variety of licensing policies that some customers may find complex and less easy to understand, such

as licensing per-core, as systems with multiple cores become increasingly more common, the difference between these

licensing methods and policies may become increasingly pronounced.

In addition to databases licenses, customers typically purchase maintenance and support. Maintenance agreements

frequently give customers the right to newer versions of the software without relicensing new copies. These are often

priced as a percentage of list prices, typically 20 to 25 percent. For this reason, because Oracle solutions tend to have

higher license cost than those of Microsoft SQL Server, the maintenance costs for Oracle can be higher as well as well.

For support, vendors typically offer different levels which range from support during business hours all the way up to

dedicated, onsite support.

In contrast to Microsoft, Oracle typically requires a maintenance agreement for the provision of service packs and

security patches. Given the longevity of databases, it‟s important for customers to consider the higher ongoing cost

that may be required to maintain an Oracle database. Microsoft Software Assurance gives customers automatic access

to new technology and provides productivity benefits, support, tools, and training to help them efficiently deploy and

use software.

Business Intelligence Business is practiced through a never-ending cycle of discovering insights, making decisions, setting direction and

goals, taking actions, and collaborating with others. Business intelligence (BI) delivers on a simple promise to improve

business performance by delivering better decisions. When information workers and managers know that their insight

into corporate data is sound, informed, and complete, they can improve business performance, create competitive

advantage, and achieve corporate objectives. As a result, CIOs consider investment in BI applications among the top

priorities for their organizations.

Unfortunately, companies are struggling to extract data from the islands of separately acquired business applications.

There has not been an easy way to obtain a holistic view across different data sources. In order to solve this problem,

both Microsoft and Oracle offer end-to-end solutions for Business Intelligence.

Component Oracle Database SQL Server 2005

Extract, transformation, and

load

Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Relational data warehouse Oracle Database 11g SQL Server 2005

OLAP (online analytical

processing)

Oracle 11g Enterprise with OLAP option,

Hyperion Web Analysis

SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

Data mining Oracle 11g Enterprise with Oracle Data

Mining option (ODM)

SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

Managed Reporting Oracle BI Publisher, Hyperion SQR

Production Reporting

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

Ad hoc query and analysis Oracle BI Publisher, Hyperion Interactive

Reporting, Oracle Answers

Microsoft Office System (Microsoft

Excel® and Office SharePoint Server)

Performance Management Oracle Answers, Hyperion Financial

Performance Applications

Microsoft Office PerformancePoint

Server 2007

Figure 2: Side-By-Side BI Comparison

On the surface, these feature offerings may appear to be quite similar. However, the integration of these products

within their respective BI suites can differ dramatically. For example, the Oracle BI product line was created and

expanded through its acquisition of Siebel Systems Inc., Sunopsis Inc., and Hyperion Solutions Corp. As a result, Oracle

is still working on integrating the metadata model, user interfaces, and even the packaging of these initially separately



developed solutions. In contrast, Microsoft BI solutions have been built to work together as the result of a unified

design. The key benefits of Microsoft BI solutions are their tight integration with and between SQL Server and Office

products, their strong development capabilities, and their acquisition cost and packaging.

The Microsoft vision for Business Intelligence is to enable all employees in an organization to make better, faster, and

more relevant business decisions. This requires a robust set of technologies that work together. On the back end, the

core BI platform is based on Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and its related technologies, such as SQL Server Integration

Services (SSIS), SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS), and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). On the front end, the

2007 Microsoft Office System—together with Microsoft Office Business Applications—is designed to provide a familiar

suite of tools and applications with which to access the back-end BI solution. By surfacing reporting and analytics

through the tools that users are already familiar with, users can access information directly where they work,

collaborate and make decisions. Microsoft‟s approach is designed to eliminate the necessity of lengthy trainings or

learning of new tools. This helps to enables virtually everyone in the enterprise to participate in the measurement and

management of the business. It also helps to reduce the time required to implement a BI solution to weeks or

months—instead of months or years—helping customers to achieve faster return on investment.

The Microsoft BI platform provides a professional grade integrated development environment. The SQL Server 2005 BI

Development Studio is based on the highly popular development tool, Microsoft Visual Studio. In contrast, Oracle BI

development tools can vary by product and may not integrate with other Oracle development tools.

Because Microsoft‟s data warehousing and business intelligence capabilities are service-enabled, enterprise developers

can introduce data from back-end systems to their SOA, Web, and mobile applications. This helps improve access,

reach and impact of data without the need to

build complicated connections.

The Microsoft BI solution is enterprise-grade in

scale, but can be acquired for a fraction of the

cost of competitive Oracle offerings. For example,

the Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise

Edition Plus is currently priced at $225,000 per

CPU; Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition

is priced at $25,000 per CPU and Microsoft Office

PerformancePoint Server is only $30,000 per

server license. (*) The ETL, OLAP and reporting

services are included in SQL Server Enterprise

Edition at no extra cost.

The Microsoft BI platform supports line-of-

business applications very well. For more

information on how it works with SAP, please see

the whitepaper “Deriving Value of SAP

Applications with Microsoft Application

Platform.” For more information on how well

Microsoft BI platform supports Oracle applications such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards, please see whitepaper

“Deriving Value of Oracle Applications with Microsoft Office Business Applications and Business Intelligence” and

“Running Oracle Applications with Microsoft SQL Server 2005.” Now we will examine the main products in Microsoft BI

platform.

Figure 3: Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform

Oracle SAP Siebel

(*) NOTE: All prices represent published suggested or estimated retail prices and are subject to change without notice. License

prices and actual costs are subject to a number of factors including discounting, taxes, additional service options, and other

variables. Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server are designed to collectively provide functionality

comparable to that of Oracle BI Enterprise Edition Plus.



SQL Server The foundation of the Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) offering, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is designed to provide a

complete enterprise-ready and scalable BI/data warehouse platform.

The SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is designed to perform complex data integration, transformation, and

synthesis at high speeds and in a continuous environment for large data volumes. SSIS provides a scalable and

extensible data integration solution that enables users to easily and quickly integrate data from any source. SQL Server

Analysis Services (SSAS) provides a unified and integrated view of all business data as the foundation for all traditional

reporting, OLAP analysis, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scorecards, and data mining. The SQL Server Reporting

Services (SSRS) is a comprehensive reporting solution that supports the entire report life cycle. Users can create,

personalize, manage, and deliver reports from different data sources in a variety of formats, including traditional paper

based reports, interactive, web-based, embedded and ad hoc reports.

Office System The 2007 Microsoft Office System helps simplify how users access, analyze, and share data within the organization.

Microsoft Office Excel 2007, part of the Office System, provides a powerful set of tools that helps users easily create

spreadsheets and analyze and share information. Excel is tightly integrated with SSAS to enable users to use the Excel

environment for exploratory data analysis. Powerful data mining features and rich data visualization schemes can help

users discover and illustrate important trends and exceptions. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 helps users

integrate structured and unstructured data, see different levels of detail, and interact with spreadsheets, key

performance indicators, and dashboards. Users also can take full advantage of the built-in native capability such as

enterprise search, content management, communication, and collaboration. The Excel Services feature of SharePoint

Server provides access to real-time, interactive Office Excel spreadsheets in a Web browser, enabling users to easily

protect, share, and reuse spreadsheets.

PerformancePoint Server Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is an integrated performance management application designed to help

improve operational and financial performance across all departments and all levels of the organization. PerformancePoint

Server enables users to monitor progress, analyze what is driving variances, and plan the business from budgeting to creating

management reports. Companies can have metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs), and reports delivered to every desktop

through intuitive scorecards, dashboards, and the Microsoft Office system environment.

Featured Case Study: Premier Bankcard, LLC PREMIER Bankcard, LLC (PREMIER), one of the largest VISA and MasterCard credit providers in the United States,

needed to enhance scalability and performance for its business intelligence (BI) data warehouse and online transaction

processing (OLTP) databases. The company reported that BI began as an area of research for them, but then become

absolutely mission critical. It enhanced its BI infrastructure by upgrading its 12-terabyte data warehouse to Microsoft

SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit), hosted on a server computer with 16 Intel Itanium 2 processors. PREMIER

also upgraded its OLTP database to the 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005. The upgraded deployments provide a better

view of the business, enterprise-grade scalability, maintenance without scheduled downtime, and easier database

management.

User Experience While a poor user experience may seem like to be merely an unfortunate inconvenience to the users of the software, it

can also be a large, frequently hidden drain which threatens the return on investment predicted by the organization

building the software.

For many types of software, the use or purchase of that software directly affects the revenue of the organization that

builds it. For example, e-commerce software directly generates revenue as the result of consumers purchasing products

via the software. Packaged consumer software, such as home accounting software or large enterprise class accounting



systems, generates revenue through product sales. A superior user experience can lower training costs, provide better

productivity, and result in higher customer satisfaction.

Many organizations may prioritize user experience highly at first, but later find they lack the support of processes and

tools that‟s necessary to effectively achieve high quality user experience.

Microsoft has always focused on delivering great user experiences and the tools for companies; for many years it has

sought to empower its customers to build and sustain their own high quality user experiences—for themselves and

their own customers.

Unlike Microsoft, Oracle has traditionally focused on the back-end. Oracle„s key offerings in user experience area are

Oracle Portal and WebCenter, which primarily handle the end-user interactions. Oracle‟s features roughly map to those

that Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 provides, with some extension to Exchange Server, Communication Server, and

Live Conferencing.

This section discusses a few products Microsoft offers to deliver compelling user experiences, including Silverlight, WPF,

Office Business applications (OBAs), and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET-based media

experiences and rich interactive applications for the We—using video, animation, interactivity, and stunning user

interfaces. It enables richer, more compelling Web experiences that take greater advantage of the client for increased

performance, providing support for vector-based graphics, media, text, animation, and overlays that can be integrated

into any existing Web application. Silverlight provides the “Wow!” factor for customers and compels them to use

products and Web sites again and again. On top of that, Silverlight offers a flexible programming model built on the

.NET Framework, providing a fast and cost-effective delivery of high quality media to all major browsers running on

Mac OS or Windows.

Featured Case Study: CBS Television Stations When the CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group wanted to increase interaction and engagement with viewers,

they chose Silverlight. CBS created a rich, easy-to-use Web application that supports user-generated audio, video, and

image files. The application further serves its audience by allowing affiliates to personalize the experience, focusing on

events and interests within their community.

Windows Presentation Foundation The Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides a foundation for building applications and high

fidelity experiences in Windows Vista, blending together application UI, documents, and media content while at the

same time leveraging the full power of the PC. This functionality extends to provide support for Tablet PC and other

forms of input, a modern imaging and printing pipeline, accessibility and UI automation infrastructure, data driven UI

and visualization, as well as the integration points for weaving the application experience into the Windows shell.

For consumer products, WPF enables a rich user experience that combines the best of web, desktop, and connected

systems. Designers and developers can aggregate the best of media, web content, and interaction to build a wide

variety of applications that were virtually impossible before. For enterprise organizations, WPF can help leverage

existing IT assets to build new visually immersive applications that combine data, processes, and reporting—even when

extending Microsoft Office.

Office Business Applications and SharePoint Server 2007 Many companies have invested heavily in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management

(CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), and other line of business (LOB) applications. Unfortunately, too few of them

enjoy the full potential of their investment due to a failure to adequately connect their people and their processes with

the data and processes of their business applications. This gap can be bridged by a new breed of applications called



Office Business Applications (OBAs). These OBAs are designed to enable information workers to use the tools they are

familiar with to access the data and processes that are currently locked away in backend systems.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is designed to offer functionality comparable to that of Oracle Portal and

WebCenter. It provides collaboration, portal, enterprise search, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), business

process and forms, and business intelligence to enterprises.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server helps companies integrate their traditional IT investment into a single environment

and to simplify both IT management and user experiences. Users have access to these resources from their familiar

desktop productivity application environment, as well as from a browser. As a result, they have the rich tools necessary

for unstructured work combined with the “anywhere, anytime” reach of a portal or workspace. It is a single, familiar,

and consistent way for information workers to manage all the various information, collaboration, and process-related

tasks.

For more information on OBAs and SharePoint Server 2007, please see whitepaper “Deriving Value of Oracle

Applications with Office Business Applications and Business Intelligence”.

Development Creating custom applications to meet today‟s business requirements is becoming increasingly complex. Development

teams must be able to:

1. Manage shifting business requirements throughout the project

2. Adequately test applications for quality and reliability

3. Gain visibility into a project‟s status to make trade-off decisions

4. Drive predictable project delivery

5. Deal with global development, regulatory, and compliance challenges

The development process needs to be rapid and applications need to meet the high expectation of user experience

from customers. In the past, organizations have relied on many different tools to provide custom applications. Each

tool required investments in money and time to

set up, manage, and maintain. Ultimately,

developing custom applications in this kind of

environment affects productivity and limits the

business agility of an organization.

In the application development arena, Oracle

provides a set of tools for application

development, database development, and

business intelligence. Their flagship product is

JDeveloper, a free integrated development

environment (IDE) for SOA and Java

development. It also offers separate tools for

Oracle database development. Each product is

good for its designated purpose, but they are

not integrated together. In order to develop

different types of applications, customers may need to buy multiple tools with separate user interfaces. Many

customers may find that Oracle simply does match the richness and integration of Microsoft‟s application development

tools.

Microsoft always takes application development to heart. As an IDE, Microsoft Visual Studio enables developers to

build applications that target Microsoft Windows, the Web, Microsoft Office, mobile devices, and Microsoft SQL Server

from a single interface. Microsoft also offers Microsoft Expression® Studio for designers. The tools under the

Expression brand enable design of standards-based Web sites and rich desktop experiences, as well as the

management of digital assets and contents. Working together, Expression and Visual Studio enable designers to

Figure 4: Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite



collaborate with development teams easily so they can provide compelling applications and content across the Web,

Windows, and mobile domains.

In addition, the Visual Studio Team Suite provides the tools and guidance to help development teams collaborate and

communicate more effectively across the organization, ensuring software quality and project visibility during the

development process. There is built-in support for defining and sharing requirements, architecting the application, and

developing the software (including database development), as well as application testing and deployment (see figure

5. above). Tracking work items and bugs is a natural part of the workflow, which also enables rich reporting for the

team and upper management to track the project progress.

Featured Case Studies: Dell and EDS For Dell, the rewards for adopting Visual Studio Team System were high. By using Visual Studio Team Foundation

Server to deploy a global source code management platform, Dell is able to maintain a centralized repository of all

source code and provide it to developers on a just-in-time basis regardless of their location. Improved source code

management has also enabled Dell to consolidate its source code onto fewer servers, redeploy 100 system

administrators, and improve the productivity of its developers. At time of publication, the calculated ROI for the project

was 225% over a six month period.

Electronic Data Systems (EDS) used Visual Studio Team System to support a more efficient global development

strategy, realigning its internal software development assets and improving the productivity of its developers and

testers. They directly benefited by avoiding the need to hire a multitude of project managers to manage project

overhead. Indirect benefits included significantly improved developer productivity. The ROI is calculated based on the

average fully loaded cost of developers, which has reached 286% with a four month payback time.

For more information on Visual Studio Team System ROI and traditional case studies, please visit:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/bb676820.aspx

Summary This document compared the Oracle and Microsoft application platforms, showing the Microsoft maintains a

significant advantage in three major areas:

1. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Customers deploying the Microsoft application platform can achieve a

lower total cost of ownership. A lower total cost of ownership almost typically helps customers achieve a

higher return on investment.

2. Integration. Microsoft‟s platform has been built incrementally based on customer feedback, resulting in a

high degree of thoughtful integration. As this paper seeks to make clear, Microsoft solutions are built to work

together and offer a clear alternative to Oracle‟s acquisition-based silo applications.

3. Extensibility. The Microsoft application platform is designed to be more easily extensible thanks to its strong

tools and the availability of millions of capable developers worldwide.

Over the years, the Microsoft platform has become the leading platform for mission-critical applications. According to

a 2007 Microsoft-commissioned independent analyst survey study of North American application platforms, Microsoft

.NET is the leading deployment platform for mission critical applications and Microsoft Windows is the preferred OS for

mission-critical applications; Microsoft also enjoys the highest overall vendor satisfaction relative to Oracle and IBM.

Customers like the fact that Microsoft provides a clear investment roadmap for customers, uncomplicated by multiple

confusing acquisitions. With a focus on empowering people, Microsoft is helping companies align their business and IT

goals by providing an application platform that enables them manage and implement change, deploy the right

resources on the right projects, turn information into action, help ensure reliability, scalability and security, and support

real world business processes.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/bb676820.aspx




Additional Information

Web sites:

For more information about the Microsoft and Oracle partnership:

http://www.microsoft-oracle.com/Pages/default.aspx

For more information on the Microsoft Application Platform:

http://www.microsoft.com/business/peopleready/appplat/default.mspx

For more information on Microsoft BizTalk:

http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/default.mspx

For more information on Microsoft SQL Server:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql

For more information on Microsoft Visual Studio:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx

For more information on Expression Studio:

http://www.microsoft.com/expression

For more information on Microsoft Office:

http://www.microsoft.com/office

Additional Resources:

.NET StockTrader Sample Application:

An End-to-End Sample Application Illustrating Windows Communication Foundation and .NET Enterprise Technologies

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684.aspx

Microsoft BizTalk Server Adapters:

http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/adapter/default.mspx

Sources and References

The Burton Group: “The Microsoft Superplatform: Setting the Bar in the Superplatform Arms Race (8/7/05)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/7/9/679833c2-467e-4fe3-847c-

8206e9cd936d/The_Microsoft_Superplatform.pdf

Microsoft PressPass: “Microsoft Highlights “Real-World” Approach to SOA at SOA & Business Process

Conference” (10/04/06)

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/oct06/10-04PragmaticSOAPR.mspx

eWeek: “Report: IT Spending Shows Slight Improvement” (03/16/06)

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1937318,00.asp

Nucleus Research: “Vendor ROI Score: Microsoft BizTalk Server” (Research Note E103; 9/2004)

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/1/5315CCC2-7A6D-4339-B5F4-AF67A989F061/e103-ROIScore-

MicrosoftBizTalk.pdf

Siemens IT Operations: “Electronics Company Cuts Project Development Time by 50 Per Cent with Service-

Oriented Architecture” (Posted: 07/05/2007)

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000000338

http://www.microsoft-oracle.com/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/business/peopleready/appplat/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/sql

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/expression

http://www.microsoft.com/office

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/bb499684.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/evaluation/adapter/default.mspx

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/7/9/679833c2-467e-4fe3-847c-8206e9cd936d/The_Microsoft_Superplatform.pdf

http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/7/9/679833c2-467e-4fe3-847c-8206e9cd936d/The_Microsoft_Superplatform.pdf

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/oct06/10-04PragmaticSOAPR.mspx

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1937318,00.asp

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/1/5315CCC2-7A6D-4339-B5F4-AF67A989F061/e103-ROIScore-MicrosoftBizTalk.pdf

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/1/5315CCC2-7A6D-4339-B5F4-AF67A989F061/e103-ROIScore-MicrosoftBizTalk.pdf




Microsoft: “SQL Server 2005 Features Comparison” (Web site; Updated: May 22, 2006)

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx

ESG: “Microsoft Runs the Security Table” (11/06)

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/itanalyst/docs/ESGNov2006SQLServerSecurity.pdf

Next Generation Software Ltd.: “Which database is more secure? Oracle vs. Microsoft,” by David Litchfield

(11/21/2006)

http://www.databasesecurity.com/dbsec/comparison.pdf

Microsoft Third-Party Study: "Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Database: A Comparative Study on Total Cost

of Administration (TCA)" (May 2006)

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/compare/oracle/sqlserver2005-oracle-tca.mspx

CBS Television Stations: “CBS Television Web Sites Amplified by Visitor Videos, Images, and Audio” (Posted:

05/01/2007)


Dell: “ROI Case Study: Microsoft Visual Studio Team System - Dell” (Posted: 04/23/2007)


EDS: “ROI Case Study: Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and EDS” (Posted: 04/12/2007)


Microsoft: “Microsoft SQL Server: Editions and Pricing (Web site)

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/editionspricing.mspx

Oracle: “Oracle Technology Global Price List” (1/15/08; Web site)

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/technology-price-list.pdf

Microsoft: “How to Buy Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server” (Web site)

http://www.microsoft.com/business/performancepoint/howtobuy/default.aspx

PREMIER Bankcard Inc.: “Credit Card Company Runs its Business with 12-Terabyte Mission Critical BI Solution”

(Posted: 07/25/2007)


Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) (Web site)

http://www.tpc.org/

Microsoft PressPass: “TPC-C and TPC-H Benchmark Results for SQL Server” (5/21/07)

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/compare/tpcc.mspx

Oracle: “Siebel Customer Relationship Management Applications” (Web site)

http://www.oracle.com/applications/crm/siebel/index.html?URI=2509

Microsoft PressPass: “TPC-C and TPC-H Benchmark Results for SQL Server” (5/21/07)


Microsoft: “SQL Server: PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications” (Web site)

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/compare/oracle/peoplesoft.mspx#EBAA

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/itanalyst/docs/ESGNov2006SQLServerSecurity.pdf

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/compare/oracle/sqlserver2005-oracle-tca.mspx




http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/editionspricing.mspx

http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pricing/technology-price-list.pdf

http://www.microsoft.com/business/performancepoint/howtobuy/default.aspx


http://www.tpc.org/


http://www.oracle.com/applications/crm/siebel/index.html?URI=2509


http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/compare/oracle/peoplesoft.mspx#EBAA

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